Senate approves $70B in war funds

Washington, D.C.  The Senate gave President Bush a big win on Iraq on Tuesday night as it passed a massive $555 billion spending bill combining funding for 14 Cabinet departments with $70 billion for U.S. military operations there and in Afghanistan.

But Bush's GOP allies were divided over whether the omnibus appropriations bill represented a win for the party in a monthslong battle with Democrats over domestic agency budgets.

In rapid succession, the Senate cast two votes to approve the hybrid spending bill. By a 70-25 vote, the Senate approved the Iraq and Afghanistan war funds - without restrictions that Democrats had insisted on for weeks. Senators followed with a 76-17 vote to agree to a bundle of 11 annual appropriations bills funding domestic agencies and the foreign aid budget for the budget year that began Oct. 1.

The House is slated today to ready the entire package for Bush, though the vote will be only on the Iraq portion of the measure.